The fragility of the US-Iran post-war memo signed on 17 June was laid bare over the weekend by an eruption of armed hostility. The US said it had struck Iranian military sites in retaliation to an alleged attack on a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz, while Iran aimed drones at US military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait.
Farther west, violence hasn’t ceased even after a US-brokered framework deal between Israel and Lebanon, the success of which hinges on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese land and Iran’s proxy militia Hezbollah being disarmed.
That seems like a tall order, given the big context of regional instability: the right of both Israel and Palestine to exist, without Tel Aviv denying both the latter and the human rights of Palestinians.
What Saudi Arabia urged the White House after Al-Qaeda’s terror attacks of 9/11, that West Asia’s post-1948 crisis needs to be resolved, taken as badly timed then, may need reiteration for enduring peace. Israel’s war on Gaza may have shifted global opinion in that direction.
Now it’s for today’s US leadership to attempt what even Nobel peace laureates failed to achieve, a win-win in West Asia, before China spies an opening.